ST signs agreement with Rambus to expand licenses

STMicroelectronics said it has signed a comprehensive agreement with Rambus to expand existing licenses between the two Companies, settles all outstanding claims, and commits both organizations to explore additional opportunities for collaboration. Rambus gains access to ST’s Fully-Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FD-SOI) process-technology design environment so that it can design its future memory and interface solutions for FDSOI based chips. ST said it has secured license terms from the Cryptography Research, Inc. (CRI) division of Rambus to make it possible for ST to deploy Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures and CryptoFirewall core security technology across a wider range of products. DPA is a form of attack that involves monitoring the fluctuating electrical power consumption of a target device and then using statistical methods to derive cryptographic keys and other secrets. DPA countermeasures are used to protect secret cryptographic keys, including those used to secure transactions for banking, identity, pay television, video gaming, smartphones, government, and other applications, explains ST. CryptoFirewall cores are complete hardware-based security blocks designed by CRI to protect against a wide range of attacks and tampering techniques. Now ST to further strengthen the security robustness of its leading-edge set-top box ICs and gateways f...